Sun) had generally prevailed in that Idolatrous country." Hence one or two ages might have passed since the Canaanites quitted constellation for idol-worship; and one or two more since their ancestors first quitted the true God for the worship of the heavenly bodies, and thus adding these ages together we may be carried back to the time described by Job, when Idolatry in his own country was punishable by the Laws. But the case of the Canaanites was not a solitary one. There were Bethshemeshs in Syria also. Jacob Bryant in his Mythology, v. 1. p. 80, tells us that "Ancient Syria was particularly devoted to the worship of the Sun and of the Heavens. Philo Biblius, says he, informs us," that the Syrians and Canaanites lifted up their hands to Baal-Samen, the Lord of Heaven, under which title they honoured the Sun;" but we know that the Syrians in the time of Jacob had adopted the worship of Idols. There were also anciently Bethshemeshs in Egypt, or temples for the worship of the Sun there, but in the time of Moses this worship had been changed into the worship of bulls or calves, or as Jeremiah says of Images. "He shall break also the images of Bethshemesh, which is in the land of Egypt; and the houses of the gods of the Egyptians shall he burn with

fire." Jer. c. 43. v. 13. It will be seen also further on, that the Babylonians began their Idolatry by the worship of the Sun; but Isaiah informs us that in his time their Gods consisted of graven images. Now if it be true that in the time of Moses the worship of the people which he himself knew was that of Idols; but that in Job's time the worship of the people in his own vicinity was that of the Sun, Moon, and Stars; and if the latter was the first upon record, preceding the former by some ages; and if moreover Job's own countrymen had not even gone into the constellation-worship because they had not yet departed from the worship of the true God, we have another reason to induce us to suppose, that the age, in which Job lived, must have been considerably prior to that of Moses; and this assertion is strengthened, if not established by Job's own declaration, that Idolatry was punishable by law in his own time in the land of Uz; for if this declaration be true, Job could not have lived after Moses; for Job was not an Israelite; and there was no nation from Moses to Christ, except the Israelitish, which had such a law; the rest of the world having been Idolaters during that long period.

But there is yet one other argument, which

ought to be brought forward before we close the case. It is said of Job (c. 42. v. 16) "that he lived after this (his severe trial) one hundred and forty years." Now it appears from Genesis, c. 11. v. 12-26 that the young men in the patriarchal times from Shem to Terah, the father of Abraham, began to marry or to have their first children born to them at about thirty-two years of age. Let us now suppose this to have been the case with Job. But it appears again Job c. 1. v. 4, that his sons at the time when his afflictions came upon him, were old enough to have households of their own. Let us suppose then that his eldest son might have been at this particular time about thirty years old. Job under these premises would have been in his sixtysecond year when his afflictions began. But he is said to have lived one hundred and forty years after this. He must have lived then to the age of two hundred and two. But this was about the age (from 200 to 240) to which men generally lived from the time of Peleg, in whose time the life of man began to be shortened to the time of Jacob. Thus Peleg lived 209 years, Reu 207, Seng 200, Nahor 119, and Terah 205 after the birth of their first children. Abraham also, the son of Terah, was 175 years old, and Isaac,

H

the son of Abraham, was 180 when he died. After this the term of human life was shortened again. Jacob the son of Isaac reached only the age of 147, and Joseph the son of Jacob the age of 110; and this last term, namely, 110, was about the ordinary length of an old man's life in the time of Moses. Thus Moses himself was 120, and his successor Joshua 110, when they died. Now taking it for granted that these statements are true, it will not be difficult to determine among which of the three classes of men, which have been mentioned, Job must have lived. He could not have lived among the men either in or after Moses's time, if he died at the age of 202. Neither if he was an old man, when he died, could he have lived among the class of men from Shem to Peleg, the length of whose lives was from 400 to 500 years and upwards. There is then but one class left wherein to place him, namely, that which begins with Peleg and ends with Isaac the son of Abraham, which consisted of men, who lived a little better than two hundred years after their first children were born to them; and this is the class, in which, to meet the most objections, I think Job ought to be placed.

I am sorry that the digression, which I have

been obliged to make, in order to prove that Job lived in an age prior to that of Moses has been so long; for after all that has been written I have only yet shewn what were the preceptive and prohibitory parts of the body of divinity of the churches of Adam and Noah. But what were the doctrinal parts of them? Men must have had what we may call their religious opinions or notions or rather articles of belief during these ages. It will therefore be my next business to try to discover what these articles of belief were.

One of the religious opinions, which we may consider to have been entertained in these times, was that of the agency of the holy spirit of God, I mean in its ordinary uses; that is, as convincing men of sin, warning them against it, encouraging them to good, comforting them in the pursuit of the same, and guiding them in their religious concerns. This opinion must have prevailed in the earliest ages; for we find God saying to Noah before he destroyed the world, "My spirit shall not always strive with man." Gen. c. 6. v. 3. Doubtless Noah understood the meaning of these words or God would not have used them; but he could not have comprehended the meaning of them, unless the agency of